Spent $150 on a fancy tong blank set that was completely wrong.

I bought a set of tong blanks from a guy at a hammer-in last summer, thinking I'd save time by just bending them to fit. Turns out the steel was way too soft and they deformed when I tried to grab hot stock. Anyone else get burned by impulse buys at demonstrations?

3 comments

3 Comments

faith_perez19d ago

Funny how that happens, isn't it? You think you're getting a shortcut and end up with a doorstop instead. It's like buying those cheap kitchen knives at a flea market that look great but can't cut a tomato. Or those bargain bin power tool batteries that die after two charges. Seems like there's always a guy at a show selling stuff that looks perfect until you actually try to use it for real work.

the_karen2mo ago

The guy selling them said they were 1080, but they bent like butter in my hand. I had a similar thing happen with a punch blank from a swap meet, thought I was getting a deal but it was just some mystery steel that wouldn't hold an edge. Makes you wonder how much of this stuff is actually tested before people start hawking it.

juliam402mo ago

Oh man, sounds like you got the "heat treated by wishful thinking" special! At this rate, I'm surprised the guy wasn't selling them as "customizable bendy straws.